


Lead Me Off the Beaten Path

by sunspot (unavoidedcrisis)



Category: Lumberjanes
Genre: Childhood Memories, Gen, Wilderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 06:53:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9589622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unavoidedcrisis/pseuds/sunspot
Summary: Grumbling campers break off into teams of two and head in different directions. Rosie looks around, but everyone is disappearing into the woods around them and she's left standing on her own in the afternoon sun. Abigail is always her partner.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [burglebezzlement](https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/gifts).



Abigail's wandered off again, because of course she has.

"Find her," Nellie snaps at all of them.

Grumbling campers break off into teams of two and head in different directions. Rosie looks around, but everyone is disappearing into the woods around them and she's left standing on her own in the afternoon sun. Abigail is always her partner.

"Alone, then. Real safe," she murmurs as she hefts her pack. Rosie closes her eyes for a second and tries to think like Abigail. Her feet take her away from where most of the other girls went into the forest and toward the cliffs behind the camp instead.

After only a few moments of picking through the brush, she finds an old trail, rambling and mostly overgrown and exactly the kind of path Abigail would take.

There's half a footprint in the mud off the side of the gravel of the path, like someone's foot slid off the rocks. Rosie looks around, seeing if anything around or above her head would have caught that person's attention and distracted them from walking in a straight line.

And there it is, a wasp nest hanging from a nearby branch with a circle of disturbed plants and dirt around the base of the tree. Abigail had been talking that morning about wanting her Dirty Bugger badge, so Rosie knows she's going in the right direction now. She crouches in the mud to hastily scribble a sketch of the papery layers of the nest in her notebook. She can't think of a reason she oughtn't get her badge too, especially since they won't get a chance to work on their Watching Paint Dry badges as planned now.

Abigail's at the end of the path, twisting her hands together in front of herself. She straightens up when Rosie rounds the corner.

"Rosie! I knew you'd find me. Come see what I've found."

Rosie sighs. She wants to complain that Abigail ran off again, that she messed up their plans that they made _together_ to do something on her own, that she didn't even leave a hint as to where Rosie could find her… But Abigail has that sparkle in her eye, the no-backing-down, adventure-or-bust gleam that meant they were both going to end up with skinned knees, new enemies (or sometimes friends), and stable duty for a week. Rosie can't resist it.

"It's someone's house, Abigail," Rosie says, only a little out of breath. Abigail drags them well off the old path, veering hard to the left for a quarter mile or so before they finally come out of a dense copse of elm trees and Rosie sees the cabin.

Abigail is beaming. "It's abandoned. I peeked in the windows. Tons of dust, broken furniture. Totally empty. Can you say clubhouse?"

"Great. Let's head back to camp, it's getting late."

Abigail rolls her eyes. "All the better for going in and looking around. How often have you had the chance to explore a haunted house?"

"Never, and I've never felt shortchanged about it. Let's _go_ , Abigail."

Abigail fixes her with a hard look while the seconds stretch out between them. "Fine," she says finally, smile playing at the corner of her lips. "But you promise we can come back?"

Rosie sighs, but finds that Abigail's smile is catching. "Yes, okay, fine, if Nellie doesn't throw us into an active volcano, we can come back."

They walk back towards camp, stopping a few times along the way to make a few more sketches of local insects and to gather soil samples for analysis. Nellie might not be so angry at Abigail for wandering off if they can make a good case for a merit badge out of it.

Rosie realizes after the last time they stop that Abigail isn't with her. She jogs back the way they'd come to find Abigail looking back, wistful look in her eyes. She twines her fingers through Abigail's and tugs her along. "Come on, it's going to be dark any minute. We'll come back."

"I want to live there one day. Never leave these woods. We could live there together, Rosie. It'd be fun."

"School starts again soon," Rosie says, a feeling creeping over her that she can't quite explain when she sees the look in Abigail's eyes. It's something beyond want, it's fiery... It's entirely _Abigail_ in a way Rosie is coming to learn means trouble. Obsession, maybe.

Rosie has plans that don't include living in the woods in an old cabin with all sorts of ghosts and old memories to haunt her days, but there's no way she can voice any of it when Abigail turns those fiery eyes on her and gives a smile that sends her stomach for a flying loop.

"One day, Rosie, not tomorrow. Is it pancakes for dinner tonight? I'm starved."

* * *

_No surer way to make the gods laugh than to tell them your plans,_ Rosie thinks, when the memory subsides and she can tear her eyes away from the shaggy, overgrown brush that now entirely hides the entrance to the old trail and the cabin that's probably definitely haunted, if it hasn't fallen down entirely. She hefts the axe again and faces her campers.

Everyone's eyeing her warily, and she realizes she has no idea how long she was lost in thought for. "Sorry, did anyone else see the blackbird carrying the compass and whistle? Wonder what he's getting up to, hmm? So, the thing to remember when you're splitting logs…"

**Author's Note:**

> Reread all of Lumberjanes to be sure I wasn't screwing it up royally. Totally worth it :D


End file.
